Can I make a form to print fields on a hcfa 1500 ins.form?

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I work for a physician's office and want to use Access 2003 to manage our
patient accounts. Can I make a form that in turn would be able to print the
needed fields on a HCFA 1500 form. Also, can I do monthly statement billing
through Access?
 
"=?Utf-8?B?UlMgUGVkaWF0cmljIE1lZGljYWwgUHJhY3RpY2U=?=" <RS Pediatric
Medical (e-mail address removed)> wrote in
I work for a physician's office and want to use Access 2003 to manage
our patient accounts. Can I make a form that in turn would be able to
print the needed fields on a HCFA 1500 form. Also, can I do monthly
statement billing through Access?
Click to expand...

1) Can it be done - yes to all three.

2) Can you do it - depends on your knowledge and training and ability.

3) Is it legal to do it - depends on local data protection legislation
and on your answer to (2).

Hope that helps



Tim F
 
Hi Tim,
Thanks for answering my post. I just finished the course on Microsoft
Access 2003 and I now need to work with it to reinforce what I've learned.
Our office at work is losing it's connection of Medi-soft because the
hospital that we are affliated with is closing it's service. From what I am
aware of in Access, I thought it might be an answer, however I need guidance
in doing it. Do you know where I could find this guidance or who I should
 
Thanks for answering my post. I just finished the course on Microsoft
Access 2003 and I now need to work with it to reinforce what I've
learned. Our office at work is losing it's connection of Medi-soft
because the hospital that we are affliated with is closing it's
service. From what I am aware of in Access, I thought it might be an
answer, however I need guidance in doing it. Do you know where I
could find this guidance or who I should contact?
Click to expand...

If you are taking up db design from scratch, you need to ask yourself
some serious questions. If you screw up, are real patients going to get
sick or die? Are they going to be bankrupted by being sent the wrong
bill? Are the doctors going to get sued because they are sent the wrong
medical details?

I am writing from the UK where the legislative environment is somewhat
different from the USA(?). Googling for "HIPAA" would seem to be a good
start; you do need to know that you are capable of staying within the
law.

Finally, with a load of software available off-the-shelf, are you really
sure that the huge amount of your time (learning, designing, coding,
scrapping it and starting all over again, DC al coda) will really be
cheaper than buying in something that works, where another company will
take all the risk, which is guaranteed to be legal, etc etc?

Sorry if this sounds like a dampener. I am all for people taking up and
learning about db design, and Access is a great model to learn on (and to
produce on, for that matter). But I also feel that some situations are a
bit too serious to start on. Nobody learns to drive in an ambulance with
a sick child in the back; you use a bashed-up old Fiat, so that when you
crash and burn it's not quite such a disaster.

All the best



Tim F
 
Hi Tim,
Our systems are not going to be connected to the internet so there is no
chance of leak there. Our patient records are kept in their own personal
charts. Basically what we want to do is keep track of patient billing
information, address phone, visits listing only the date and diagnosis code
and their ins. From there I would want to be able to send a paper claim to
the ins. company and that is why I wanted to know if I could set up a format
to print information on a hcfa form ie load the hcfa forms in the printer and
have my form in my data base print the needed fields on the form. I don't do
electronic billing so it is not subject to hippa. This system would not be
used for labs and any medical information that could in turn cause harm. It
is very basic stuff. I realize that there are systems on the market, our
problem is that our doc is most likely going to retire in several months and
 
Your first task (if you choose to proceed) is to read-up on the topic
of "database normalization". This is the theory & practice of how to
design the proper table structures to do what you need. This is /not/
done on the basis of how you want the forms & reports to look. It is
done instead, to reflect the logical nature & relationships of the data
that you need to store. This is the first thing that most new users of
a database product, get totally wrong. It is not an easy, common-sense
process - it needs some hard graft, over a period of some time, to
understand it confidently. A bit like an internship, I imagine!

For example, an Invoice would typically consist of at least five tables
- not just one: InvoiceHeader, InvoiceLine, Customer, Product,
ProductPriceHistory, and maybe more. If this comes as a surprise to
you, you are definitely not yet ready to design you own accounting &
billing system!

Personally, I agree with Tim's warnings on this one. It's a bit like me
saying, "I have access to tons of medical information on the web.
Surely I can confidently self diagnose & medicate? I'll just ask
questions when I don't understand something." Well - maybe; maybe not!

Here's my suggestion: if you want to give it a try - do. Bu don't
assume that you will get it working. Instead, take the conservative
approach, and assume that you /won't/ get it working, & then have a
fallback plan. Then, if you do get it woking - sweet! If you don't,
just go to the fallback plan.

Just my 2c!

HTH,
TC
 
Our systems are not going to be connected to the internet so there is
no chance of leak there. Our patient records are kept in their own
personal charts. Basically what we want to do is keep track of
patient billing information, address phone, visits listing only the
date and diagnosis code and their ins. From there I would want to be
able to send a paper claim to the ins. company and that is why I
wanted to know if I could set up a format to print information on a
hcfa form ie load the hcfa forms in the printer and have my form in my
data base print the needed fields on the form. I don't do electronic
billing so it is not subject to hippa. This system would not be used
for labs and any medical information that could in turn cause harm.
It is very basic stuff. I realize that there are systems on the
market, our problem is that our doc is most likely going to retire in
several months and we don't want to make a huge investment.
Click to expand...

I know that US laws are more lax, but I'd still be surprised if you would
be allowed to do this legally, but in the UK, this kind of thing would be
very difficult to defend in terms of our Data Procection legislation. The
relationship to the Internet is completely irrelevant; our laws talk only
about disclosures and purposes. The fact that you want to disclose
medical information to a finance company would put it into Schedule 2 and
Schedule 3, which raises huge provisos such as client access, active
consent, liability, and so on.

What is the difference betweeen "to send a paper claim to the ins.
company" and "do electronic billing"?

As TC says, you have a lot to learn about R Theory, programming, user
interfaces, security, user support and so on. It's a good challenge, and
I wish you well.

B Wishes


Tim F
 
Tim, you may want to use the combination of Access and PDF. Use the
Access to generate FDF files and merge with a PDF version of the HCFA
1500 that has been modified with fields.
 
Vince, and others...

I am working on a database for my wife's practice (small, part time
nutritional counselling) and her biggest beef is the billing (HCFA forms).
You mention the FDF file (no idea what that is, will search in a min) and
merging with a PDF file. There are some PDF files out there with fields. I
dont suppose you, or anyone, could kind of lead me and others through this,
at least abstractly, so we can move on from there?

Thanks
 
Basically, the way that works is you have your PDF file that contains
"fields". For example in your HCFA-1500 form, you have a field in the
box procedure code, first line of detail. You would name the PDF field
"procedure_code_line_1" or some shorter version of that name. If I find
my 1500 form with fields already in it, I will send it to you.

In your Access program, you would generate an FDF file that contains
the tag for the field followed by the value for that field. ie.
<<procedure_code_line_1>>W0680. I am not positive on the tagging style
(it has been a while), but you get the idea.

I think then launching the fdf file automatically merges it with its
corresponding pdf and gets you the form with the data.
 
Tried to send you the file and other information, but it kicked back as
invalid email address.
 
Hello,

I am trying to do the very same thing but with a different medical billing
form. I am researching that and what I am thinking is to create a template
in Word the biller would complete and then put the form in the printer and
print it. I spoke to another company that did that, however they are willing
to give their template to me. I am going to start designing one.

Susan
 
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